Kobo Aura HD Review

Table of Contents

Introduction

Kobo is nothing close to a front-runner in today's U.S. monochrome e-reader market—we cede those honors to Amazon and Barnes & Noble. The market for monochrome-screen e-readers has dwindled to a mere handful of companies whose hardware offerings and e-book storefronts maintain a meaningful impact. Amazon's various Kindles (notably the Kindle Paperwhite, among its monochrome models) and Barnes & Noble's pair of Nook Simple Touch readers have led the pack in both design and innovation, with Sony's Reader devices and Kobo's lineup rounding out the models for sale that still matter here in 2013.

Kobo may be an also-ran in the United States e-reader market, but it has a more robust presence outside the country. Still, its status in the States didn't stop the scrappy company from launching a uniquely premium e-reader, one whose display specs are second to none among monochrome models. (Mind you, its physical size is sure to give pause, as well.) Kobo has thus far built a niche as a go-to family of e-readers for non-U.S. users, as well as for its advanced social-sharing features for your reading accomplishments and stats. Typically, the company's pricing has been highly competitive with Amazon and Barnes & Noble, too. So we see its offerings as a reasonable alternative to the two big boys for U.S buyers, especially because of Kobo devices' support for a broad range of content formats, especially ePub.

With the 2013 release of the Kobo Aura HD, Kobo makes an interesting design move, pushing beyond the 6-inch E Ink display that has been the de facto screen standard among monochrome e-readers for the past few years. Sony was the last to attempt a monochrome e-reader with a screen larger than 6 inches (the 7-inch Reader Daily Edition, received to lukewarm reviews back in 2009). Kobo bills this model as a "limited edition" (in the sense that it's a premium product, not limited in number), a moniker that more belies its niche target audience than anything else.

Indeed, it's the screen that sets the Kobo Aura HD apart. It's a large, 6.8-inch display with a high resolution for an E Ink-based screen. Although Kobo says it doesn't have an exclusive on using this specific display, the company says it doesn't expect to see a similar one on competitors' models anytime soon.

The reality is, though, that at $169.99 this e-reader costs more than twice what a basic monochrome Kindle does (see our review of the basic Kindle 2012), and it's $50 more than the entry-model Kindle Paperwhite, its closest competitor in terms of display resolution. For just $10 more than the Aura HD costs, you can pick up the Kindle Paperwhite with 3G connectivity. And while each of these Amazon models has today's smaller, standard 6-inch E Ink display, they've nonetheless met with tremendous success amongst the price-sensitive mono e-reader crowd. Also, consider that if you get too far above $100, pretty soon you're in the territory of full-color 7-inch tablet-cum-e-readers like the basic Kindle Fire at $159 and the Kindle Fire HD at $199, both of which use LCD screens. The question then becomes whether you want to focus narrowly on reading, which monochrome E Ink displays do supremely well. And in so doing, you'll need to decide whether a reader with a larger, sharper mono display and wider file support than most is worth the extra cost.

Other points of distinction for the Aura HD include double the storage and more RAM than the Kobo Glo; the latter translates to greater responsiveness and faster page turns. The bigger screen does mean you'll need to tolerate some trade-offs, though. Clearly, the higher price is one of them, but the Aura HD is also thicker and heavier than the competition—something that may not sit well with you if you're the sort to curl up with your e-reader for long hours at a spell.